Next Gen is When Blu-ray Will Finally Actually Shine

The PS3′s inclusion of Blu-ray was a controversial one – it added significantly to the console’s already insane price, delayed it in Europe and came at a time when many thought that HD-DVDs would win. But at least all the games would all be 50 gigabytes of awesomeness, right?
-PSLS

[ftwrthtx]

Blu-ray sold me on the PS3. It can only benfit both the PS3 and the Xbox 720

[darthv72]

It doesnt magically make things better. all it does is provide space for content to be stored compressed or uncompressed.

though if you have everything in uncompressed form, it fills up faster. So that is why there is compression to begin with.

the real part that does the shining is the hardware itself that does the decompression of the content so it can be displayed on the screen.

Think of the format as a really big box. that is all it is. It can hold all sorts of stuff and depending on how well you organize the stuff, you can fit more into the box but there is a limit as to how much you can put.

Then you get another box or an even bigger box. But the same rules apply.

[ProjectVulcan]

It'll still matter, but less and less as the PS4's life continues. We are inevitably heading toward downloading most games.

It is a gradual process but much of the developed world is expect to have vastly superior internet access and speeds in 5 years.

The UK's speed is still actually rubbish compared to most of Europe but even that has made huge gains in 5 years.

It has nearly trebled in that time period and will only keep rocketing for the next 2-3 years because of big investment in the network. The UK is not alone with major high speed internet investment programs.

Bluray won't be made obsolete by downloads too soon but it is inevitable at some point that a large amount of console gamers move to download games as PC platform already has.

Personally I like physical copies of games but the demand for that method of delivery will decrease.

[ftwrthtx]

Blu-ray was more important for movies when the PS3 launched.

As for storage, 1 disc versus 3 or 4 discs does make it considerably better. To say otherwise isn't being very realistic.

[darthv72]

It didnt take the PS3 to make blu a success like the PS2 did for DVD. People were going to move on to a better visual product anyways.

the competition between players on the market was much more prevalent than back in the dvd days. Prices of stand alone units were dropping quicker than that of the PS3.

As to the convenience of a single disc...yeah i totally agree. Like i said, bluray offered more storage space. the perception of it being better was due in part to the content not having to be compressed to fit. But movies tend to be very linear to begin with. Not a whole lot of variables to have to deal with when it comes to the core of movie.

I think many are not digesting my first comment correctly. The fact it was more space didnt make things better. The overall is the sum of its parts. the quality of the hardware and the quality of the content are what should be viewed as making the format better. Not the other way around.

Case in point, CD's offered more space than carts. So we didnt really see and advantage to that space in the games OTHER THAN higher quality music (redbook audio) and some fmv/animated cut scenes.

The core of the game itself was always the same as what could have been on a cart. The programming, code, sprites...all of which are processed by the hardware not the media it is on. The same holds true till this day.

all of what you see on screen is a result of the processing power of the platform. Not the storage medium. The disc, cart, hdd, flash drive...all of them share the same common bond and that is the storage medium to hold the code. Just in different capacities.

[guitarded77]

@ darthv72

Storage is one of the most important aspects of making a game, or any piece of software. The more you have, the more you can do... it's more than a trivial aspect of development.

[alexcosborn]

The format for games maybe, but not for movies.

[Ares84HU]

How is it not for movies??? I'm genuinely curious

[Dark_Overlord]

DVD's would struggle to cope with the bandwith required for Blu-Ray movies without running at very fast speeds (creating more noise), let alone the space required for the full movie, you'd end up with every film being multiple discs.

[TrendyGamers]

Creepiest Kaz pic yet? He looks like a weird fish instead of a Na'vi.

[doctorstrange]

Swimming to victory

[Shadow Flare]

Feast your eyes on this

http://24.media.tumblr.com/...

[plaZeHD]

We are actually learning about her at school.

[dbjj12088]

I hope so. The asset files for next-gen games must be HUGE.

[Kurt Russell]

The first game to benefit from these huge assets will be Dead or Alive...

I went there :(

[andrewsqual]

Yeah it doesn't matter that my copy of the first Resistance is still perfectly scratch free and a copy of Dead Space 3 bought 3 weeks ago on 360 is probably scratched to bits.
But yeah Bluray, Shine, Next Gen, fuck off bullshit article.

Edit* if you work in retail where you trade in PS3 and 360 games, you know exactly what I am talking about and how good it is to say to somebody buying a preowned PS3 game "I can guarantee you 100% you will have no problem with that disc."

[flyingmunky]

Manufacturers should really put that special coating from blurays on dvds too. They really do scratch up pretty easy, then again it doesn't help that a lot of people use their disks for cup holders and ashtrays. Or at least that's what it looks like when I buy a preowned game or rent a movie from redbox.

[Jek_Porkins]

Honestly Sony probably could have skipped Blu Ray last gen and they would have been in a better position this generation.

The PS3 would have been cheaper and would have gotten higher saturation because of it. I think since games are getting huge now, this is the perfect time for Blu Ray to shine, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are all taking advantage of bigger space. Considering some of the next gen games are supposed to be 50 gigs and higher, I couldn't imagine a digital download only future. Imagine all the millions of people trying to download the next COD at midnight?

[stage88]

Uncharted and Metal Gear Solid say no.

And that's just two Sony exclusives.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Agreed. Not sure if he realizes it or not but there is a reason why GT5 did 8 million units.

1000 cars, 1080p etc is not something I see being done with a DVD, GT3 and GT4 where on DVD's, have can GT5 benefit from an old format?

Next gen systems, NEED next gen formats. Sorry nut ask Id how Rage went and ask Rockstar why GTAIV was "hindered". Mind you this gen had games that where 35gigs and 40gigs.

Sony is not about getting "quick" sales. The fact of hte matter is, someone needed to add Bluray on a console to get the price down. Period. I didn't see MS adding HD-DVD to there systems main drive. Sony took the loss because its an investment on there future and frankly gamings future.

Do you really think that MS was going to add Bluray in 720 if PS3 didn't just do 70 million to drive down the price?

Sony took the risk and it payed off big, with games like KZ2, KZ3, GT5, every Uncharted MGS4 etc. MS played it safe and pretty much gimped a whole gen because of stupid hardware choices.

http://www.videogameconsole...

Anyone believing in such garbage should take a look at some gaming history to see how gaming media has advanced and how it will in the future.

http://www.videogameconsole

take a look at the years of when those systems released and see how fast and how large games got between then. ie the PS1 having the largest growth and impact to gaming that the world has ever seen. almost 100X the space of SNES (mind you thats like PS4 having a format that is 5TB at launch and a game using 3 disk at launch), its still by far the largest leap to ever grace gaming and it was truly needed, FFVII launched with 3 disk...remember that people.

If you think a format isn't part of a systems hardware, think again. Sony would not even be in the game industry if it wasn't for the CD, FFVII would had never been made the way it was on PS1. I think a lot of your are really not understanding its umportantce. Games needed the space this gen day one, just because game developers shortened, made extra disk, added a bunch of DLC doesn't mean they some how didn't need more space, it actually proves they very much did.

Games don't get smaller each gen, they get bigger.

PS2 had 5-7 gigs of space.

360 had 7 gigs of space......now how on earth can PD make a GT5 with the same space? How can Rockstar make a GTAIV with the same space they made GTASA and make it look bigger, better, more features etc? They can't. They will simply "N64" there games, in teh same respect FFVII was going to be a completely different game on N64. They are not make the game just because, they are not making it with 7 gigs in mind, ie they are "limited" and "hindered" by the format.

Dan and Sam Housers words not mine, you know they made that little game series called GTA.

GTAV will be on a whole bunch of disk on 360! LOL!

[Shadow Man]

blu-ray was a double edge sword for sony this gen, it was the primary cause for the delay and price but it was an advantage for huge games like mgs4,heavy rain, ffx3, l.a. noire to be in a single disc.

[NatureOfLogic]

So your saying Blu Ray was not needed for the great games like MGS4, a game the 360 never got. I guess since Microsoft nextbox will likely have it, it's all important now? lol at you fanboys. If anything the nextbox will playing catch up when it comes to disc format. 360 went a whole generation with an outdated disc format that held many games back.

[Hicken]

Just curious, but why do you show up in every Sony article with something inane to say?

If Sony HADN'T backed Blu Ray this gen, it wouldn't be nearly as big in the upcoming generation. There's no telling for certain, but given that the PS3 was the cheapest Blu Ray player on the market when it launched, I think it might not have been nearly as popular at the start without that format.

And, as others have mentioned, games like Metal Gear, Gran Turismo, and others would not have existed were it not for Blu Ray. At the least, they wouldn't have been as good as they were. Then again, knowing who I'm speaking to, you probably think those games are overrated, right?

No matter. The games are what they are in part because of the Blu Ray discs that contain them. They allowed the devs to design with all that space in mind. And since those games did rather well for Sony, I'd say they did well NOT to skip out on it.

[MikeMyers]

Bluray isn't why those games could only be made. Gran Turismo could have still came out. In fact the PC shows that because the PC has games that can do what Gran Turismo 5 did and more. Metal Gear Solid could have been on the Xbox 360 as well, it just wouldn't have been on one DVD. MGS4 was already broken up into parts and PS3 owners like myself were forced to partially install the game and have long loading times between those chapters.

So if Bluray is the magical weapon in making games why do we still not see it on the PC platform even though it has long surpassed what the PS3 is capable of? The hard drive was the main weakness on the Xbox 360 because not every system had one. Therefore Microsoft could not mandate mandatory installs which would bypass the data storage that Bluray excels at.

http://www.psxextreme.com/p...

So much for the need of Bluray. As long as you have a hard drive you're good to go.

[Shadow Man]

will the ps4 stick with double layer blu-rays or go triple layer?

[ded1020]

I remember when they were talking about making 200gb discs way back when ps3 came out. It would be really interesting to see such a game that would NEED that disc.

I liked this article but I disagree about 6x speed being good enough. Bluray reading so slow was a big reason why MS did what they did to work around it with HD-DVDs. I know that was a format in its own right but I thought the reason bluray won in the end was that speed was an issue of it being new, and much faster would be just around the corner..

for reference, the 360's dvd drive speed is 12x, and i think bluray is as old now as dvds were then.

[N0S3LFESTEEM]

200gb is major overkill... You could probably make a GTA game the size of texas.

[ninjahunter]

It would probably be smart to just stick with dual layer. Im looking through my game library right now, the only game i can see that uses over 20gb is rage. And we all know that game has a crap load of not particularly compressed textures, and most of the lighting and stuff was baked in.
And its pretty easy to assume that gaming is going to be moving away from methods like that, and more towards real time effects. which could only require 5 mb, where before it took 500.

[dafegamer]

interesting kaz pic ;)

[level 360]

Here's an answer for PS4 support for 4K ( http://www.joystiq.com/2013... ).

[akaakaaka]

bs..

[OC_MurphysLaw]

it will shine just in time for it to die as digital becomes the prefered delivery for all media and broadband kicks into high gear.

[wenaldy]

Kaz looks like Regal Blue Tang fish from Finding Nemo.

[SDF Repellent]

Thank god the X720 will be getting Blu Ray, so now there is no excuse for Konami not to release the next Metal Gear on a Microsoft system.

[arbitor365]

the 720 will definitely need blueray. unless they want their games to come in books of CDs

[urwifeminder]

I wonder if pc games will start to use bluray i guess i will get one if they do.

[Bladesfist]

We are pretty much all digital. I don't know any PC Gamers who buy discs anymore. There is no sane reason to do so if you have a fast internet connection.

HDD is faster than Blu Ray
Better for environment
Cheaper for developers

[urwifeminder]

I collect pc games on disc i also buy on steam to think no one buys pc discs anymore is a little strange.

[Bladesfist]

"I don't know any PC Gamers..." I did not say nobody does...